Targeting Gun Rights Instead of Criminals: S1774 is a Bad Dose of Old Medicine

Now that the Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment protects the individual citizen's right to own handguns, it's time for public officials to start prescribing a new antidote for gun crime: target violent criminals who actually misuse handguns, instead of passing scattershot laws with toxic side-effects like disarming victims, bullying honest gun owners, and demonizing firearms themselves.

Unfortunately, a bill pending in the State Senate and up for committee vote 12/8 (S1774) is a bad dose of old medicine. It's a proposal to ration the Constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to own handguns beyond the existing regulatory thicket, which already slows exercise of those rights to a trickle. It ignores violent behavior and known sources of illegal trafficking, instead restricting only persons investigated and pre-certified as acceptable to own firearms. Even mainstream media recognize the ineffectiveness of this approach.

State handgun permits currently take months to receive, and can be further delayed or denied to anyone unsuitable. Applicants go to their local police, disclose personal and employment information under penalty of perjury, get fingerprinted, consent to criminal and mental health background checks, submit references, pay fees, and then wait, sometimes six months or longer.

Meanwhile, law enforcement conducts a 13-point background investigation. If a permit issues, it must be used within 90 days or the process repeats. A federal background check occurs at purchase, and transaction details are reported to police. If multiple permits are used within 5 days, another report is filed with BATFE.

S1774 criminalizes use of more than one permit per month, no matter how long the applicant waited for them or when they expire. It ignores the background checks and pre-certification, treating honest citizens like criminals and interfering with self defense and property transfer. If a gun recently bought for protection from a stalker or batterer malfunctions or is stolen, it cannot be rapidly replaced when needed most.

So how, exactly, are criminals impacted by S1774? It's hard to say. The theory goes that criminals and their surrogates apply for permits and legally buy their crime guns from licensed dealers, so selling fewer guns overall will reduce crime. That's like saying selling fewer cars will reduce drunk driving, which is absurd.

Who actually believes that criminals willingly submit to police as prospective gun buyers, undergo fingerprinting and background checks, wait for permits, buy guns in government-monitored sales, only to turn around and sell them illegally or use them in crime? Were that true, personal data gathered in the process would lead authorities straight to them. But that doesn't happen, because criminals don't get guns that way.

A recent BATFE statistic is cited to misleadingly claim that 27% of "crime guns" traced in New Jersey began as lawful purchases. Conveniently omitted is the fact that many traced guns have absolutely no connection to crime but are given a "crime" code nonetheless by the BATFE database, which requires such a code to initiate a trace. So-called "crime guns" include firearms from house fires, floods, natural disasters, gun buy-back programs, estates, dealer inspections, court-orders, and lost or stolen firearms. Just because a firearm is traced doesn't mean it was used in crime.

While politicians debate whether rationing guns to sportsmen will reduce crime, no one is paying attention to a primary source of crime guns: theft rings. An Eatontown FedEx worker was recently charged with stealing 146 handguns from shipments and illegally selling them in Jersey City and Newark - cities plagued by gun crime who vocally support S1774 even though it ignores firearms theft.

Violent criminals who use handguns should be locked up, and we should throw away the key. Maximum sentences, no plea bargains, no early parole - it's just that simple, because it addresses the real cause of gun crime without limiting rights of honest people.

One might think New Jersey would have enacted such a straightforward law long ago, but it hasn't. Instead, it has spun a tangled web of hypertechnical laws obsessed with blanket regulation of gun possession by everyone rather than punishing criminal behavior. Many of these laws place sportsmen in jeopardy of 10-year prison sentences for "crimes" like stopping for food or fuel on the way to a target range, or allowing a spouse to access firearms.

Criminals laugh at laws that regulate hardware, because they don't get hardware legally, and they're not deterred when one tool becomes less available.

Gun rationing schemes have been tried before, but have been voided, repealed, or shown ineffective. A state court voided Jersey City's ordinance, finding "no rational relationship between restricting the number of guns that a licensed gun dealer and a licensed gun owner can transact per month and the frequency of illegal gun possession and crime." That decision was affirmed on appeal. A similar South Carolina law was repealed in 2004 as ineffective.

If we make the mistake of demonizing firearms instead of punishing criminal behavior, we disarm victims and neglect true causes of crime. We need tough laws severely punishing violent criminal behavior with guns, not laws that restrict the Constitutional rights of honest people.